Julie Kane

Back in the 1980s, my now-deceased father was in the hospital on suspicion of having had a heart attack, and he proceeded to have a full-blown one while being hooked up to all those monitors and beepers. A couple of orderlies rushed into his room wheeling a stretcher, which they kept trying and failing to line up parallel to his bed. Finally, they gave up and asked my dad if he would please get up and walk over to the stretcher and lie back down, which he did. Next, they tried to give him oxygen, but they messed up again, and water squirted down his nose and throat and nearly choked him. By then they had reached the hall elevator, but no matter how many times they turned the stretcher around to reposition it, banging it into the walls and sides of the doorway every time, they could not fit it inside. My father remembers thinking, "Oh my God, I'm having a heart attack, and these morons are going to kill me!" Then it suddenly struck him as funny, and he began to laugh. At that point, he lost consciousness and woke up some time later in the ICU, alive and destined to live for another fifteen years.

And I guess that pretty much sums up my attitude toward humor in poetry. My "regular" poems, those in Rhythm & Booze and Jazz Funeral, convey a fairly tragic vision of life. But when things get about as bad as they can get, all I want to do is reread Cope and Parker and write funny stuff.

Mother:To brush one’s hair a hundred strokes a nightTo fry a burger in a pan of saltThat tampons robbed one of virginityTo always let the boy be first to callTo give a child an aspirin for sore throatTo wash white gloves out nightly in the sinkThat gold and silver clashed, and brown and blackThat broccoli was best when steamed till limp

Teachers:That Russia was our greatest enemyThat cowboys were the good guys, Injuns badTo kneel down with one’s arms above one’s headBelow the desk in an atomic blastTwo hundred million in the U.S.A.Three billion on the surface of the globeThat French was requisite for diplomats(Though Esperanto was the future’s hope)

Nuns:That girls not named for saints would go to hellThat newborn infants had already sinnedTo never enter church without a hat(Though squares of kleenex could be bobby-pinned)To fast all night before one took the hostTo stick one’s tongue out for it, not the handsThat patent leather shoes reflected allAnd boys would peek to see one’s underpants

Friends:To wear white lipstick for the “London Look”To rat one’s hair to make it pouf on topThat baby oil would give the perfect tanThat incense covered up the smell of potTo not trust anybody 31To save one’s calories for alcoholThat bras were only good to toss in flames(Though Newton figured out that apples fall)

Professors:That schizophrenics had their moms to blameThat stomach ulcers were brought on by stressThat female animals would always fallFor males whose plumage was the showiestTo make a carbon copy when one typesThat women climax from the womb, not clitThat authors’ bios were irrelevantTo understanding works of western lit

Coda:But one man taught me how to live in doubt,The only precept I have not thrown out.

From "Sex Appeal of the Presidents"

37.Richard Milhous Nixonlooked like something out of horror fiction.Either Pat was into necrophilia,or we had overdone the psychedelia.

Julie Kane's most recent poetry collection, Rhythm & Booze, was a National Poetry Series winner and Poets' Prize finalist, and her forthcoming collection, Jazz Funeral, is the winner of the 2009 Donald Justice Poetry Prize. She teaches at Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.